The Summer of Chasing Mermaids (17 page)

There was this: my hands in the air next to Vanessa and Kirby, our bodies shimmering and shaking, curls wild and electric, our mermaid hearts on fire in the deep blue sea of the club.

I closed my eyes, let the music pulse through my blood, fill my soul.

The deejay played on and on, an entire Caribbean mix, Bunji Garlin and Alison Hinds and the wining queen, Denise Belfon. When Bella Garcia belted out the opening words of “Work Ya Way Back,” I was in a full-on wine myself, rolling my hips, twisting and turning, all the old moves coming back even stronger than they had on the beach, infused again by the energy of the eager crowd. Like me, they'd been charged up by the music, the kind that made it impossible not to dance, not to feel it, not to move and be moved.

This is mine,
I thought. Music. Rhythm. The intense rush that came from connecting with something so deeply, so right. No matter that I couldn't sing. I could breathe. I could dance. I could move. The music was still in me. It always would be.

When I finally opened my eyes, heart pounding madly with the
beat, Christian stood before me. Wordlessly we held each other's gaze as the air between us evaporated. Christian's hands landed warm on my hips, thumbs grazing the skin that peeked out beneath the hem of the blouse. I wrapped one arm loosely around his neck, the other waving at my side, keeping my balance as my sway deepened.

Again I heard that word in my head . . .
safe
. . . and I closed my eyes, letting the beat run deeper into my muscles and blood and heart and bones, a familiar twining of soul and music, guiding me across the dance floor. Christian kept pace, moving toward me and away, his body swiveling but his hands never leaving my hips. Warmth gathered between us like a living thing, something that pulsed and glowed and tethered us together. I moved in closer, and his hands slipped to my back, pressed out the last sliver of light between us.

For a time we were no longer in Oregon, dancing in a club in the damp northernmost curve of Atargatis Cove. We were underwater, the very bottom of the sea where impossible things bloomed, and with all the naked boldness of the Pacific, I stood on my toes and pressed my lips to Christian's neck, savoring the hot, saltwater taste.

His arms around me tightened, and deep inside, everything stirred anew.

The dance mix finally ended, and our arms dropped. I pulled away, opened my eyes. Christian was watching me with new intensity, eyes wild with barely checked desire, but still he didn't speak, and as we quietly made our way to the bar for waters, I knew he wouldn't. Neither of us would speak of it, this momentary thing
between us, this passion that had risen up like a wave, crashing against the sand, only to be sucked back out to sea.

Alone in my room later, wrapped in nothing but a T-shirt and cool white sheets, I closed my eyes and let the sounds of the ocean overtake me. For miles north and south, waves lashed the shore, ravishing the coastline, and something deep within—something long buried, forbidden—crept out from the darkest places in me. I thought of Christian, and with one hand between my thighs, sighed his name hot and damp into the night.

I still felt his warm hands on my hips. I imagined them roaming my body, slipping beneath my shirt, and my own hands made it so. I caressed my breasts slowly, one then the other, felt my nipples rise beneath the touch of cool fingers. With eyes closed tight, I let my hands drift down my belly. And maybe it was a dream, and maybe it was a fantasy I invited as I lost myself in the nearly forgotten ecstasy of music and dance, but one thing was certain: The scorch of Christian's desirous gaze set my skin aflame; the ghost of his touch would not soon leave me.

For that secret night and many more after, as my fingers slipped inside me and found their own pulsating rhythm, I was grateful no one could hear the sound that otherwise would've passed my lips, a moan as deep as creation, a howl as loud as the sea.

Chapter 21

“Who would've thought one
little bug could make so much noise?” Vanessa peeked through the cage of her fingers at the cricket she'd just captured. “We're gonna be findin' them everywhere for weeks.”

The morning after our club outing, Christian and I had arrived at the
Queen of
to find her filled with buckets of raw, chopped fish—an impressively disgusting feat that Noah must've stayed up all night to accomplish. The stench alone would've been enough to warrant pirate retaliation, but thanks to my shattered window, a dozen gulls had snuck in, lining up to feast.

“Gives new meaning to the phrase ‘poop deck,' anyway,” Christian had said. The sight was so incredibly awful, all we could do was laugh. With one hand on my shoulder, through tears of hilarity that teetered on insanity, Christian shouted at the sea. “Katzenberg! You pirate!”

The two of us had sat on the docks then, texting for reinforcements.
Twenty minutes later Vanessa showed up, Sebastian in tow, dressed to scrub. And despite the fact that she'd spent the previous night dancing and flirting with Noah, even Kirby answered our SOS, strolling down the docks in a headscarf, overalls, and rubber gloves up to her elbows.

It took us all day to clean up the mess. I suggested taking the remaining fish parts back to their owner, dumping them into the
Never Flounder
, but Christian was cooking up a different plan.

Christian said it was best to wait a few days to wage a retaliation, let the other guy think he was in the clear.

This morning, five days after the fish attack, we made our move.

“Piracy rule number one,” Christian said on the drive to the pet store. “Pirates don't acknowledge the piracy to the pirate. When we see Katzenberg, it's like this never happened.”

I nodded.

“Rule number two,” Sebastian said. He was sandwiched between Kirby and Vanessa in the backseat, his white-blond hair blowing all around. “Pirates don't need baths. Pirates are stinky on purpose.”

Christian met his eyes in the rearview. “Overruled. If you want to camp out tonight, you're getting hosed down first. I'm not sharing a tent with a skunk.”

Sebastian giggled. “You're the skunk!”

Christian navigated us into the pet store lot. He winked at me and got out of the truck, leaving it running with the rest of us inside. Ten minutes later he was back with the crickets. Boxes and boxes of them.

“I grabbed whatever they had,” he said, securing them in the trunk. “Told them it was for Sebastian's pet python.”

“I don't have a python.” Sebastian's eyes lit up. “
Can
I get a python?”

Christian laughed. “Dude. We're
definitely
not sharing a tent with a snake.”

Back at the marina we all gave the boat another scrubdown—the fish smell had yet to vacate, despite copious amounts of bleach—and then Vanessa went to pick up lunch for us at the Black Pearl, just to confirm Noah would be tied up at work for the next few hours. Coast clear, Christian and I snuck onto the
Never Flounder
, crickets in hand.

We opened the boxes, shook out the bugs.

With a wicked gleam in his eyes, Christian said, “Welcome to the apocalypse, Katz.”

Now, hours after our cricket adventures, the girls and I were hanging out in my room, listening to a country mix Vanessa insisted was all the rage in her Lone Star State. I'd intended to curl up alone, finish
Moby Dick
, but they'd followed me in as though we'd always been friends, as though my bedroom had always been our hangout.

“Crickets won't
totally
mess up Noah's boat, right?” Kirby asked. “I know he deserves it after the fish thing, but he's under a lot of pressure with his dad, and he's trying to—”

“Kirby.” Vanessa released the cricket out my window and reclaimed her spot on the fluffy carpet. “Don't fall apart on us now. We did the right thing.”

“But . . . you guys. It's
Noah
.” Her shoulders slumped.

“Yeah, and it's the Pirate Regatta,” Vanessa said. “Your house is on the line, Kirbs. Get in the game!”

Kirby nodded reluctantly. “I know. It's just . . . What can we really do? Even if Elyse and Christian win—”

“
When
they win,” Vanessa said.

“If, when. The mayor will just come up with some other stupid bet. If Mr. Kane really wanted to keep the house, he would've said no from the start. All this boat stuff, the pirate games? We're just prolonging the inevitable. Face it.” Kirby brushed tears from her eyes. “The tides, as they say, are a-changin'.”

“Times,” Vanessa said. “The song is
times
, not tides.”

Kirby rolled her eyes. “
Everything
is a-changin'.”

The girls fell silent. Kirby was right. Everything was a-changin', and not just this business with the Cove. Regardless of what happened with the house, after this summer Kirby would finish out her senior year, then head off to college. Vanessa was spending next year in South America, eager for a few backpacking adventures before making any decisions on college and career tracks. Noah had dreams of buying the Black Pearl, but who knew if that place would even exist after P&D got done. And in a couple of months Christian would be back at Stanford, then on to some big, bright future, the map of his life created, curated, and perpetually sponsored by his father.

Me? Maybe I'd linger here with Lemon. Maybe my visa would expire, and I'd be forced to return to Tobago, forced to serve drinks to
the resort tourists who didn't require friendly local conversation. But no matter what I did, where the tides swept me next, all of it would change again. Even if I stayed exactly right here, right on this bed in this room in this big house by the sea, the tide would carry in the sands, one grain at a time, until the house and I were swallowed up, sucked back out to sea.

“Well, this is pathetic.” Vanessa blew a breath into her bangs. She switched up the mix on the iPod, picked out some old-school British rock to amp up the mood. “New topic? Anyone got any juicy gossip, particularly about cute boys named Noah?”

Kirby shot her a scolding glare. “Speaking of cute boys, whatever happened to that guy you were kissing at the bonfire? You two totally took off. And then you never said another word.”

Vanessa laughed. “I'm shocked it took you this long to bring it up. Over a week? New record for you, Kirbs.”

“So what's the deal? Fourth of July weekender, trolling the beach for kisses from beautiful girls?”

“Oh, there was more than kissin', sugar.” Vanessa wiggled her eyebrows.

Kirby looked scandalized. “You didn't even know the guy!”

“His name was Vince. Or . . .” She wrinkled her nose, concentrating. “Vance? Vaughn? Definitely something with a
V
.”

“Like you know
anything
about a
V
.” Kirby shook her head. “Vanessa, God knows I love you, but you can't just have sex with every guy you meet. What about, like, consequences?”

“Kirby. Not everyone ends up pregnant or with some disease. You just . . . you take precautions. You know?”

Kirby frowned. “You can't put a condom on your heart.”

Vanessa exploded into laughter. “Okay, that needs to be on a T-shirt.”

Kirby was laughing too, but she was still doing her mom thing. “You guys know that saying, though, right? Why buy the cow when you can get the milk for free?”

“Who says the cow is even for sale?” Vanessa looked at her breasts and smiled. “Why sell the cow when you can go get milked for free?”

“Oh. My. God.” Kirby was genuinely concerned about this milk situation. When she saw me grinning, her eyes got even wider. “You too?”

I shrugged.
Ex-boyfriend.

“She tell you about the candy box?” Vanessa asked me.

“Vanessa!” Kirby turned purple.

I nudged her foot with mine.
I know,
I mouthed. Lemon had shown it to me my first night here, a box tucked into the linen closet of the bathroom Kirby and I shared, once made for a sampler of cheap American chocolates, now holding only condoms. “I never count them,” Lemon had said. “They're just in there, whenever anyone needs them. If I notice it's getting low, I'll refill it. No questions.”

“Candy boxes, ex-boyfriends, friends with benefits.” Kirby sighed. “Am I the only one around here who's still—”

“Yes,” Vanessa said playfully. To me, she said, “Now I wanna know the story about the ex-boyfriend. Cute? Or jerk-off?”

“Jerk-off,” Kirby said. “Otherwise he wouldn't be an ex. Right?”

For once, Kirby's answer on my behalf was correct. I flung a pillow at her anyway.

“Girls!” Lemon appeared in the doorway, saving me from miming my way through that particular tale. She was lugging a large box, which she set on the floor with a grunt. “Each of you is free to make your own decisions with boys, as long as the cow and the farmer and everyone involved is consenting. But please try to keep the squealing to a minimum. I'm sketching a new sculpture for commission and I need to concentrate.” She toed the box, smiling at me. “Elyse, package from Granna. Careful opening it, though—I think there may be a few stowaways. Suddenly I'm finding crickets everywhere.”

In the wake of another wave of giggles from Kirby and Vanessa, Lemon padded back to her reading nook, the spot where she liked to do her sketching. Kirby helped me drag the box closer to the bed, where we sat down together and yanked off the packing tape, express from Trinidad and Tobago.

Vanessa peered inside.

Granna had sent a case of d'Abreau Estates fine chocolate in every variety—dark, milk, cinnamon, and a new blend they'd just released with orange peel and hibiscus. There was another postcard from Dad and the few sweaters I'd owned on the island, most of which were thin or crocheted, ill suited for chilly Pacific Northwest nights.

“Is that from your farm?” Vanessa eyed the chocolate stash.

Dig in,
I mouthed. She tore into the case, fanned out the
rainbow-wrapped bars on the bed. She decided on the cinnamon ­flavor, and I watched with breathless anticipation as she took her first bite.

Her nose crinkled, then smoothed, eyes wide as the chocolate melted on her tongue.

“Oh, holy orgasmic hell!” She took another bite. “I get it. I totally get it. Consider me a convert.”

Kirby picked out an milk chocolate bar, and I took a dark one, settling back on the floor with Vanessa. There were still a few more items in the box—the fairy-tale books I'd asked Granna to send for Sebastian, more clothes—but good chocolate took priority.

“What's it like there?” Vanessa wanted to know, her mouth full of chocolate bliss.

I opened one of the books, showed her some of the illustrations. An island of lush, green trees. Dark, green-blue seas. Generations of families fishing in the villages, grilling the day's catch as the sun dipped below the horizon. It was the idealized tourist version, but the truth nevertheless, and my heart ached with homesickness.

“I want to go back,” Kirby said. “I've only been once, and I was mostly too cool for school to hang out with Mom back then. I didn't really appreciate it.”

I smiled, imagining what it would be like to show her around now that we were old enough to do it on our own. The Heritage Festival was coming up soon in Tobago, with all kinds of celebrating and dancing and food. I'd take her to the Ole Time Wedding in Moriah,
or treasure hunting in Pirate's Bay. Definitely the Sea Festival in Black Rock—we'd fill up on bake and shark, saltfish buljol, kingfish in coconut sauce, peas and rice, all the chocolate tea we could drink.

We'll go,
I told her, the words out before I could stop them.
Someday.

I closed the book, tossed it back on the bed with the chocolate wrappers. For a moment no one spoke, and I thought maybe she'd ask me more about the islands. About what it was like growing up there. About how my parents met in Trinidad, like hers had, and how Dad had moved us to Tobago after my mother died. I thought she'd ask about my sisters. About all the rehearsals, the competitions Natalie and I sang in. The music we'd made.

But Kirby, ever worried that too much talk of home would churn up bad memories for me, didn't ask. Maybe talk of the islands churned up bad things for her, too. Like the father she never knew. Kirby hadn't mentioned him again, not since her last visit, and I hadn't asked.

I smiled at her now. We were still getting to know each other. New friends. Closer than friends. Maybe that wasn't such a bad thing.

“Speaking of holy orgasmic hell,” Kirby said to Vanessa, smoothly changing the subject. “What does Christian say about Bonfire Guy?”

“Christian?” Vanessa said. “He knows better than to get in my business. He's got his own business to mind.”

My insides twisted. I still didn't know the exact nature of Christian and Vanessa's relationship, but they were definitely tight, definitely had a history. Whenever we were hanging out in a group where other
guys were around, like at the bonfire that night, Christian was protective of her. They shared inside jokes, casual hugs, glances loaded with meaning that only the two of them could decipher. She hadn't seemed bothered by the fact that Christian and I were getting physically close—in fact, she acted like she was all for it—but she hadn't offered up any details on their past, either.

Not that I'd asked her.

I still had a lot to learn about this new friends thing.

Vanessa swallowed the last of her chocolate, licked her fingers clean. “You guys, Christian and I . . . we made out a few times. But it's not like we ever
did
it. Not even close.”